Will picked up a small box of canned food and gave it to Josh. “This should come in handy.”
“Any fruit in there?”
“Pretty much all of them.”
“Awesome. Gaby’ll be happy.”
“I know, that’s why you’re taking it back to the island.”
Josh grinned appreciatively at him.
Will positioned himself on one side of a large crate opposite Blaine. “How are the bullet holes?” he asked Blaine.
“Duct tape’s working miracles,” Blaine said. “But I could use a refill on those painkillers.”
“Lara can take care of that. Ready?”
“Try not to drop it on my foot.”
“No promises.”
They clutched their respective ends of the crate and lifted with a loud grunt. Blaine’s face almost instantly turned pale and sweat popped all along his forehead. Josh thought the big man was going to faint, but somehow he didn’t.
“Lead the way, Josh,” Will said, his voice straining a bit.
Josh nodded and hurried across the garage again, this time with the box of canned fruits in his arms. He skated around the big, dilapidated boat and was almost at the side door when he heard shuffling noises outside.
Josh froze, and so did Will and Blaine behind him.
Footsteps moved outside the front doors. He looked down, where the doors met the ground, and saw a pair of shadows moving on the other side. The voices of two men drifted through the small opening, and Josh knew instantly it was the same two he had spotted at the house, walking toward the road.
“What did you see?” a man asked.
“Something,” a second man said.
“You brought me here because you saw ‘something’?” The first man laughed. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“I saw something,” the second man insisted.
“Birds. Geeses. Whatever those things are that’s flying around the lake.”
“Pelicans. And the plural for goose is geese. Not geeses, idiot.”
“Whatever,” the first man said dismissively. “Let’s go back. It’s too fucking hot out here to be going for a walk.”
“I told you, I saw something.”
Josh watched the shadows moving up the length of the garage doors, toward…
The side door.
Josh looked back and was surprised to see Will and Blaine had already put the crate down. Blaine drew his sidearm while Will put a finger to his lips, signaling for Josh to be silent, and moved forward, passing Josh, until he was almost pressed up against the wall next to the side door. He beckoned, and Josh, realizing he was just standing in the middle of the garage like an idiot, hurried over to stand next to him. Josh forgot he still had the box of canned fruits in his arms until Will gave him an amused look.
Josh returned a nervous smile and watched Will reach down and soundlessly slip a knife out of a sheath fastened to his left hip. Josh had seen that knife before, but he had never seen Will use it. The handle of the knife looked more like a cross that had been sanded down, like something a holy person would fashion, which surprised him because Will wasn’t even remotely religious.
Blaine moved toward the back of the garage, slipping behind an old metal shelf filled with plastic oil cartons and rusted metal tools. The crate sat in the middle of the garage.
Shouldn’t we move that?
Josh listened to the footsteps looping around the garage, shuffling lazily from the front to the side. The men were still talking, oblivious to how much noise they were making.
“There’s nothing here,” the second man was saying.
“I told you, I saw something,” the first man insisted.
“From the house?”
“Yeah.”
“You have bionic eyes or something? I can barely make out this building from over there.”
“You should get your eyes checked.”
“You know any good optometrists?”
The first man chuckled, and the second man joined in.
They sounded like good friends. Or at least, that’s what he envisioned buddies sounding like. He and Matt were kind of like that once they got to know each other.
Josh jumped slightly when he heard Will whisper, “Yes,” next to him.
Josh glanced over, expecting Will to be looking at him, but Will’s eyes were fixed on the door two feet to his left, and he was talking to himself. No, not to himself. He remembered the earbud dangling from Will’s right ear and the plastic mic wrapped around his throat.
“Hi, I can’t take your call right now, I’m in the middle of a life-and-death situation.”
Josh sucked in his breath when he heard the doorknob on the side door move as someone touched it on the other side. He didn’t have to look around Will’s body to see the doorknob moving because the big, metallic motor hanging from the back of the boat in front of him was reflecting the side door like a mirror. Sunlight splashed across the image, giving Josh an even better view of what was happening next to him.
Josh might have stopped breathing entirely when the door opened and one of the men stepped cautiously inside. Josh heard the crunch of a boot on the soft ground and saw the man’s reflection as he looked down, and Josh knew he had seen the tracks they had left behind when they first entered the garage.
The man might have opened his mouth to say something, but then Will was suddenly moving and Josh saw Will’s form spinning away from the wall and something sharp flickering, and he heard what might have been a gurgling noise, like someone spitting water.
Josh stumbled away from the wall, barely holding on to the box of canned fruits. He looked back toward the door and saw a man with long, dirty blond hair and a beard falling through the door, into the garage, his hands grabbing frantically at his neck, where blood was spurting out in thick, shiny streams. There was so much blood. Josh didn’t know how one man could bleed so much, so fast.
The man stumbled to his knees a few feet inside the warehouse, but Will was already moving past him, slipping outside.
Josh heard a voice say loudly, “What—” But the man never got the chance to finish. Instead, there was the sound of a body falling to the ground.
And then silence.
A second later, Will reappeared in the open doorway with the cross-knife, its double-edged blade slicked with blood. He looked calm, like he had just been out for a Sunday stroll and had somehow ended up with a bloody knife in his possession.
“Everything’s fine,” Will said, not to Josh or Blaine, but into the throat mic.
Who is he talking to?
Will walked inside, crouched, and wiped the knife clean on the jeans of the man with long blond hair. “We’re about to head back now,” he said into the mic. Will picked the man up by the legs and dragged him over to a corner, where he deposited the body in the darkness. “Will do.”
Will walked back to the crate and nodded at Blaine. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Blaine said, grimacing a bit. He didn’t really look “good” at all, and if anything had gotten paler. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
They picked up the crate and started toward the door again.
Josh hurried out after them, almost tripping over the second man, who was lying on his back outside the door, his hands positioned out at his sides like he was enjoying the sun splashed across his face. He had short black hair and there was a big, old scar along his left cheek that was mostly hidden by a full beard. There was a big, red bloody circle over his chest, where his heart was. The man’s face looked almost pleasant, like dying hadn’t hurt at all.
“Josh,” a voice called patiently.
Josh looked up at Will and Blaine, waiting for him about ten feet away.
“Come on,” Will said. “We’re burning daylight. Let’s get those canned fruits to Gaby.”